The World Wide Web (WWW) is a fully multimedia-enabled hypertext system used for navigating the Internet. WWW may cope with any type of data which may be stored on computers, and may be used with an Internet connection and a WWW browser. WWW is made up of millions of interconnected pages or documents which can be displayed on a computer monitor. Each page can have connections to other pages which may be held on any computer connected to the Internet.
WWW is based on the concept of hypertext which is very similar to ordinary text, except that for hypertext, connections to other parts of the text or to other documents can be hidden behind words and phrases. The connections to these hypertext are referred to as hypertext links, and they allow the user to read the document in any order desired. WWW also utilizes hypermedia which allows links to connect to not only words but also with pictures, sounds and any other data files which can be stored on a computer.
More specifically, hypermedia is a method of connecting data files together regardless of their format. The hypermedia links held on a given WWW page describes the location of the document which a WWW browser should display by using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). URLs enable WWW browsers to go directly to any file held on any WWW server. URL is a naming system, typically consisting of three parts, the transfer format (also known as the protocol type), the host name of the machine which holds the file (may also be referred to as the WWW server name) and the path name to the file. The transfer format for standard WWW pages is Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Standard Internet naming conventions are utilized for the host name portion of the URL. UNIX.RTM. directory naming conventions are utilized to indicate the path name of the file.
A WWW browser may be used to send and receive data using HTTP as well as to access popular Internet resources directly and through gateways which can be reached through the WWW. More specifically, a WWW browser is a client software which may be run on a computer able to access different resources including USENET, FTP, Archie, etc. from one common user interface. Currently there are various different WWW browsers available. The most well-known WWW browsers are NETSCAPE Navigator* and MICROSOFT's Internet Explorer*. FNT *Third-party marks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
FIGS. 1a and 1b illustrate the prior art method and apparatus for accessing Internet's WWW using a conventional Web browser. PC 100 is one of the network of computers in WWW 102. PC 100 is a Web client and WWW 102 is a Web server. PC 100 has a conventional Web Browser running such as Netscape Navigator 104 and its display device displays a text fragment 106 and picture 108. Picture 108 may be retrieved from WWW 102 through a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), which is a special name enabling Web Browser 104 to go directly to any file held on any WWW server.
FIG. 1b shows a representative PC 100 which includes a CPU 110 coupled to memory 114. The PC runs an operating system such as Windows* 112. A Web Browser 104 is used to retrieve data (e.g., web pages from a web site) from WWW 102 by addressing the requested data using a URL. FNT *Third-party marks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
In a standard implementation, a WWW web server is provided with a request for data and the IP address of the client PC requesting the data. The web server provides the requested data to the client PC at the IP address.
Some web servers provide a "cookie" to the client's web browser upon the first interaction between the web server and the client's web browser. A cookie is a unique nugget of information that the web server provides to the web browser. The cookie is stored on the hard disk of the client PC and can then be used to share information upon each return visit to the web site. A cookie includes the address of the server that sent it, and the web browser will only allow the web server that created the cookie to access the cookie. Some browsers do not allow cookies to be stored to the client PC at all, while other browsers allow the client PC to disable the storage of cookies.
Cookies can be used to store a variety of information including information about the web pages that the client PC has accessed in a particular visit to a web site. For web sites that require registration, for example, a cookie may hold a user name and password. The web server may use the cookie information to tailor the web site information to the particular requester.
The information stored in the cookie, however, only reflects limited information about the requester, such as the web pages accessed during the prior visit, and any information that the requester voluntarily provided during the prior visit. This information could be inaccurate or incomplete. For example, the current requester using the client PC could be different from the original requester who used the client PC on the original or prior visit to the web site.